Cisco Systems, the world's leading network equipment maker, asked an EU court on Wednesday to annul the approval of Microsoft's purchase of Skype, saying EU regulators were wrong to allow the creation of a monopoly. Cisco's challenge at the Luxembourg-based General Court follows the European Commission's approval of the $8.5 billion deal in 2011. Microsoft was not required to make any concessions for buying the Internet video and voice messaging company, which Cisco argues has given Microsoft/Skype an unfair advantage.

The Republic of China, which claims ownership of Taiwan, has proposed SOPA-like amendments to the country's copyright law - and netizens fear these could be misused in future to cut Taiwan off from the worldwide web. China already operates an infamous internet-censoring firewall on its mainland. The planned changes to the rules by Taiwan's Intellectual Property Office will pave the way for IP and DNS blocking at the ISP level to ban access to foreign websites "specifically designed for copyright infringement activities" or which have "obviously violated copyrights".

Samsung is going all out to best Nokia in its home market of Finland. Fresh from an IDC report claiming that Samsung outsold Nokia in Finland during Q1 2013 -- a notable first -- the Korean phone maker has outed plans to open an R&D base in the country next month.

Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann says that the startup isn't making any money currently. However, he said the company is looking for ways to give marketers tools to help them understand what's happening on the platform -- and maybe, just maybe, make some money from them. Pinterest has a ton of employees -- about 130, Silbermann said -- and the company has a valuation of $2.5 billion... The company is currently working on tools to help brands to understand what users are pinning and why. But as the team thinks about what it's going to work on next, it's thoughtful about how it will manage features that will help it make money, while also balancing the user experience.

While much of corporate America is retrenching on the real estate front, the four most influential technology companies in America are each planning headquarters that could win a Pritzker Architecture Prize for hubris. Amazon this week revealed plans for three verdant bubbles in downtown Seattle, joining Apple's circular "spaceship", Facebook's Frank Gehry-designed open-office complex and a new Googleplex on the list of planned trophy offices.

The proceeds of the cash settlement will be paid to over 153,000 owners of the devices who were denied warranty coverage while Apple's 'liquid damage policy' was still in force, according to a joint filing Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Under the earlier warranty policy, Apple had installed a Liquid Submersion Indicator (LSI), made from a water contact indicator tape manufactured by 3M, on the devices. Color changes in the indicator from white to pink or red could be viewed externally.

Nice try Apple, but that alkali strip also picked up humidity, not just handsets that fell down the toilet...

Rick Sherlund, Nomura Securities' software analyst, clearly thinks something's up with Microsoft. He is a long-time, respected Microsoft watcher -- first at Goldman Sachs and now at Nomura -- so when he puts out a research note saying something's new, even if he's a little coy about what that might be, it's worth noting.

Sherlund's note is worth reading: he says Microsoft could ditch search and the Xbox, pay off disgruntled investors and may start to listening to some strengthening voices among its shareholder base, some of which are calling for CEO teve Balmer to step aside.

The revamped Gmail automatically sorts incoming messages into categories, which appear as three tabs -- primary, social and promotions -- that users can toggle between in their in-box. The primary tab contains the e-mails that the service thinks are most important. Social contains message updates from various social networks, like LinkedIn, Tumblr and Yelp. Promotions contains newsletters, party invites and concert announcements. Users can also select to add additional tabs to help manage electronic bills, banking statements and messages from forum boards.

Amazon is the latest to make a play for control of consumer identity and login.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) has launched a web identity service with support for Google, Facebook and its own AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM). The service allows developers to grant temporary authorization to people using these three services and simplifies development as all the identity management is done by AWS.